My Bloody Valentine (Alastair Gunn) (9 page)

She spooled back in her mind. Had he been quieter than normal, maybe waiting for some small sign she’d
remembered before he would reveal his undoubtedly thoughtful gift? It was difficult to say. American society had always placed greater emphasis on seasonal celebration, although even school proms and baby showers were invading British culture these days. But he also knew Hawkins tended to draw the line at birthday and Christmas presents, so it was just as likely he’d disregarded the event, too.

In fact, now she thought about it, he seemed more concerned about her health.

So far, the journey from Becke House had been dominated by a quick-fire round of delving questions about her capabilities, followed by a lecture on recognizing and respecting her constraints.

As if to emphasize the point, they crashed through another pothole.

Mike glanced across. ‘Oops, that one leapt out on me.’

Hawkins renewed her contented face, keen not to blow her fragile credibility on day one. Clearly, Mike knew she was uncomfortable; they’d chosen their Volvo S60 from the car pool simply because it offered the most cosseting ride, but for now at least he was happy to have her along. The fact she knew
Deal or No Deal
was just starting on Channel Four meant Hawkins really needed to be at work today. And she was determined not to regret her decision to resume duties because of a few divots in the local tarmac.

But she was still glad when they emerged from a row
of seedy bookmakers and charity shops to see the park, surrounded by police incident screens, opposite one of the most tragic-looking housing projects she’d seen in a while.

Maguire pulled up next to the perimeter. Immediately, Hawkins released her seat belt and reached for the door handle. She got one foot over the sill before there was a tap on her shoulder. She turned.

‘Don’t even think about it.’ Mike wagged a finger. ‘Invalids are not to exit the car till personal transport arrives.’

‘Oh.’ Hawkins realized she still hadn’t become accustomed to dependency. She’d been so eager to get inside the cordon that thoughts of self-preservation had completely left her head. She sat back, accepting that she’d probably only have made it halfway to vertical before collapsing in a heap.

‘Fair enough.’ She closed the door. ‘Get the stupid chair, then.’

Her comment earned a look somewhere between amusement and rebuke, but Maguire didn’t fire anything back. Hawkins waited until he got out before searching her bag for the painkillers, hurriedly washing down two of the industrial-strength tablets with swigs from the bottle of water she’d brought along for the purpose.

The car rocked gently as Mike heaved her chair out of the boot.

Hawkins sat impatiently, consoling herself with the
thought that at least she had his support. Whether it was due to recent traumatic events bringing them closer together, she couldn’t say, but she and Mike had been tighter than ever these past weeks. They still bitched at each other like a pair of cantankerous pensioners, but since the attack there was something else underpinning their relationship, something below the surface; a deeper bond.

Granted, the greater level of complication that would accompany the resumption of their physical relationship was still to be introduced. They’d never had issues in the bedroom before; in fact, that side of things had always been fantastic, which was probably why, in its absence, they were sniping at each other more than usual. But even though her rational side said Mike wouldn’t care about the ugly scars covering her chest, the stab victim’s view was that his libido might run a fucking mile.

She’d considered a strategically positioned T-shirt to obscure the ugly marks. But surely that was akin to wearing a paper bag over your head.

Thankfully, the doctors said modern cosmetic surgery could almost erase the scars. The only problem was that she’d have to wait until the healing process was more advanced before they could carry out such a procedure. Which either meant weeks of frustration, or a bullet-biting moment that could lead to permanent dysfunction on, and of, Mike’s part. Or paper-bag sex.

For the moment, abstinence won.

She
sighed and turned back to the paper in her lap. Mike hadn’t been exaggerating about the renewed level of public panic in response to the latest homicide, both reflected in and stoked by the press. The
Sun
’s entire front page was dedicated to the Valentine’s Day murder: a large background image of the pressure groups already camped outside Westminster, overlaid with headlines about rampaging killers and impotent cops. And the national rags were more than happy to hearten terror by playing to the poorly informed risk-averse, constantly revisiting the one-man killing spree before Christmas; highlighting the prospect of another one now.

Nobody seemed to care that you were a hundred times more likely to die from heart disease or cancer than you were at the hands of an indiscriminate maniac with a penchant for fame. Never mind common or garden murder, which happened on a daily basis in the capital; honour killings, gang violence, contract hits. The fact you had more chance of dying in a fight with your spouse barely registered in such a propaganda war. It wasn’t sexy news. So the media kept hammering the same paranoia home.

YOU, DEAR READER, COULD BE NEXT.

Even some of the broadsheets had gone straight for the sensationalist touch paper. Several publications were digging up Valentine’s Day murders from years past, looking for even
tenuous
connections that allowed them to pronounce this latest perpetrator of serial-killer
grade. Not that Hawkins blamed them for that. Since Mike had suggested the possibility, she’d had people doing the same thing.

But there was still a decent chance the Valentine’s Day angle would burn itself out. Collective memory was short where these events were concerned, and the furore would cool fast if no concrete links to other murders were found, and if no more occurred.

Or so she hoped.

A tap on her window roused Hawkins from introspection. She opened the door to see Maguire standing next to a half-constructed wheelchair.

‘Thing’s impossible.’ He kicked one of the footplates. ‘Frame won’t lock. Cut my finger.’

‘Poor baby.’ Hawkins fished a tissue out of her handbag and handed it to him, retrospectively giving her dad credit for being able to assemble the thing without help or injury. ‘Turn it round so I can see the mechanism.’

Moments later, Maguire and his tattered ego pushed Hawkins towards the park entrance. They still couldn’t see inside, due to the plastic sheeting erected around the area’s extremities, outside the railings to avert prying eyes, albeit too late to have thrown the media off. The ramparts seemed to run straight into the sky, whose similarly grey colour hadn’t lifted since earlier rain. Fortunately, the showers had stopped, but the bitter wind and sub-zero temperatures remained. And, already, daylight was starting to fade.

They arrived at the makeshift entrance cut into the
surrounding plastic sheet. When they’d been introduced the previous year, the screens had borne ‘Police Investigation Area’ warnings, but these had quickly been removed when top brass realized they were simply creating forbidden fruit. Forensics had ended up working harder to fend off curious kids than sweeping the segregated area for clues. The updated grey covers were blank, ostensibly inviting observers to assume that a cash-strapped council had sold the space within to some faceless corporation or firm.

Maguire eased the sheeting aside and identified himself to the uniformed officer just inside. They moved through as Hawkins got her first look at the place where Samantha Philips had died.

The park’s footprint was almost square, with edges of about thirty feet in length. It was odd seeing what should have been a public area turned into a secret garden by the barriers now enclosing the space. A small network of pathways criss-crossed the ground, intersecting patches of emaciated grass, on some of which sat wooden benches on thick metal supports. Weathered streetlamps followed the paths. And, to the left, a children’s playground and a few trees flanked a large stone statue.

But it was the central area to which Hawkins’ attention was drawn, where a group of crime scene operatives were busy deconstructing a white investigation tent. The privacy walls were effective at street level, but the news channels had recently invested in airborne
drone cameras, so tents were still used to protect critical zones from prying eyes, as well as potential weather damage. This tent obviously marked the spot where Samantha Philips’ body had been discovered by five barely teenage kids. That they’d been out, unsupervised, at four in the morning, didn’t commend the area as somewhere to raise a family, but Hawkins shivered at what might have happened had the group arrived while the killer was still around.

The fact that the tent was being cleared away meant the body was long gone, the canvas structure being left in place simply to preserve any residual evidence. The corpse itself would have been studied
in situ
, swept for fibres and DNA, photographed, and only then taken for more detailed analysis and autopsy at a nearby morgue. Typically, that happened within twenty-four hours of discovery, and this particular scene was over thirty hours old. But at least that meant there’d be no infuriating wait while Forensics carried out restricted personnel sweeps, and saved Hawkins the awkwardness of donning an anti-contamination suit while sitting down.

Mike stayed silent behind her, aware that she preferred to survey this type of scene for herself, initially at least, rather than inheriting someone else’s hypotheses.

After a moment she looked up at him, pointing towards the group of suited men occupying the far corner. ‘Let’s interrupt.’

Maguire
wheeled her across.

As usual, Gerald Pritchard, the Home Office pathologist, was in attendance. Nicknamed Mr Bean on account of his nasal timbre and retirement-home dress sense, Pritchard wasn’t her favourite colleague, although that owed more to his inclination to drool over any woman within perving range than anything else. Pritchard was flanked by the usual scenes of crime mob, along with a couple of photographers and some other guys who were probably with Scientific Support.

Hawkins waited for a break in the conversation. ‘Gerald, how are you?’

Pritchard turned, raising eyebrows when he was forced to lower his gaze. ‘Chief Inspector Hawkins, how nice to see you back. On the mend, are we?’

‘Absolutely, just a few torn stomach muscles. Nothing permanent.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ He treated her and Mike to a seedy grin each. ‘However, you’re a bit late to the party; we’re about to release the area. You should have come down yesterday with your DI here.’

‘First day back,’ she replied. ‘But I’m eager to get started. Do you have photos of the body as it was found?’

‘Naturally.’ He turned to one of the younger men. ‘Otis, a moment, if you please.’

The youngest and most sharply dressed member of the group, with an enormous camera hanging around his neck, turned and lolloped over, holding an iPad.

‘This
is our new crime scene analyst, Otis King.’ Pritchard introduced everyone as handshakes were exchanged between the male members of the group. Hawkins managed to lid her temper at being treated only to a nod.
Did the guy think she’d break if he pulled too firmly on her pathetic female arm?

Luckily, Pritchard was talking again, distracting her. ‘Please show the detectives your work, Otis. I’ll be along presently.’

King led them back to the central area, from which the tent had now completely disappeared. Three operatives were packing its components into sturdy bags on a nearby patch of grass.

They stopped where the gravel path began to sweep round in a gentle arc before splitting up ahead. One fork continued in line with the perimeter; the other covered the short distance to the memorial away to their right.

‘If I can just shove you back a bit …’ Otis ushered Maguire and his seated cargo to the edge of the path, lining them up so they faced the stone structure.

‘Here’s where she was.’ He spread his arms, indicating a blood-stained section of path. ‘Head towards you, feet over there.’

Hawkins watched as King wandered backwards, describing the victim’s likely steps, persistently addressing Mike, without even a corresponding glance to her. Now that
certainly
wasn’t down to concern for her health.

The guy was a dyed-in-the-wool sexist.

King
re-joined them, firing up the iPad and handing it straight to Mike. ‘These photos were taken from exactly where you’re standing now. I’m no expert on trauma, but whoever left her looking like that really meant it. Just swipe to move on.’

Hawkins cleared her throat so loudly that not only did Maguire and the photographer look round but so did the operatives standing ten feet away.

‘Thanks.’ Without further preamble she took the tablet from Mike and studied the first image. Neither man spoke.

The photograph had been taken before dawn the previous day; probably just after the first response team had arrived on site. The quality, of the photography and of the screen itself, was excellent, allowing her to pick out individual blades of frosted grass, even in the picture’s darker areas. As Otis had promised, they were correctly lined up. The photo showed the pathway and the cenotaph beyond, from the same angle she viewed it now. The only differences were that the scene in the picture was covered in a light frost, and that there was no longer a body sprawled across it, face down.

Hawkins maximized the victim’s head on the display, picking out the right temple, where Samantha Philips’ skull had been caved in. Unfortunately, shadow, and the angle at which the photo was taken, prevented much detail from being seen.

‘Flip forwards,’ Otis suggested quietly. ‘There are better shots further in.’

Hawkins
began swiping through the images, noting the gradual increase in light as time moved on. Some shots contained scenes of crimes officers in anti-contamination suits, crouching beside the body to lift fibres or take swabs, while various close-ups showed specific details on the clothing or hands. Hawkins noted cigarette stains on the right forefingers, and decent amounts of dirt under most of the victim’s nails.